


Belief

by HiiighNooon



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-07-24 20:05:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7521265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiiighNooon/pseuds/HiiighNooon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knew the unspoken rule: don't tell. After all, Paris' great heroes, for all their strengths, were horrible at choosing hiding spots to transform.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Belief

It was no secret who Ladybug and Chat Noir were.  
  
Except, of course it was.  
  
Despite the large headlines and constant badgering of a particular blogger, every Parisian knew the unspoken rule: don’t tell. Most would never have to act on it, but there were those who did. Those who lived across from a park and bakery, whose windows overlooked dark alleys that frequented thugs and transforming heroes alike. Some would know both, most only one. No one who knew were surprised by the true identities, only how horrible they were at choosing places to change.  
  
No one commented on the extra stops they would make to a little bakery in a local part of Paris. That no matter how out of the way it was they’d stop by, chat with the woman or man behind the counter, occasionally catching a glimpse in the back of a girl with pigtails and bright blue eyes. The tip jar was always full, even if all you could add were a handful of the smallest of euros, coins clinking happily.  
  
No one mentioned how sad the large billboards were across town, how the plastic smile was a mockery of the bright laughter that would jump across rooftops at night.  
  
No, everyone who knew made sure that no one knew. Sometimes they’d wonder how many others around them have seen the two heroes–battered and bruised but victorious–shifting in and out of costume. But no one spoke of it. Even Alya, for all her blogging and curiosity, had long since witnessed Chat Noir’s transformation. She continued to play dumb though for her blog, and watched from afar as the hero bled more and more into the model’s life, her friend growing more and more as the years went on.  
  
It seemed, truly, that Hawkmoth was one of the few who knew nothing of the unspoken rule, of how easy it was to catch the heroes in the act of changing. His attempts grew more and more desperate, the qualifications for who he would chose to akumatize all but disappearing. No crying child was safe, no elderly at the loss of a loved one; no one.  
  
It wasn’t a particularly different day when the worst akuma yet appeared; drifting like smoke and mist, its entire body changed, Ladybug and Chat Noir had very little power to stop it. Even when they managed to capture it there was no way to touch the miraculous, and soon enough it escaped again, spreading itself across all of Paris, thick gas filling people’s lungs until they were collapsed on the ground, pale and glassy-eyed.  
  
It had been two days since it had appeared, and everyone was terrified to step outside. All jobs and transport were on a hold until it was resolved. Looting was at a high, people making trips to any grocer’s or corner store to stock up on food. Occasionally there would be a flash of red or black across the rooftops, or a pair of pigtails and blond hair running through the streets. Those across from the little bakery watched as the owners kept the sign open, staring out the windows in worry. No one wondered why their daughter wasn’t keeping shop with them.  
  
It was during the fifth day that things got bad. The akuma had multiplied, and now any that it consumed became a cloud themselves. People hid themselves away, windows boarded up, animals kept quiet. The bakery lay empty, door knocked down and windows smashed where the mist had made its way through. Few walked the streets anymore. Those that did were quick, hoods pulled up and eyes wide, tense.  
  
The most common were a pair of green and blue eyes, hands clasped tight, faces gaunt and drawn with exhaustion. They hadn’t returned to the bakery until the fifth day, one of the figures not able to step foot inside. The other made quick work, emerging with a large sack of food; all stale cookies and too-warm cheese.  
  
The people around the bakery knew what they should do. Talk to the mist, tell it and its master just who Ladybug and Chat Noir were, and hope that the effects of the akuma could be reversed, that things could be normal again.  
  
But people knew the rule, that silent unspoken rule.  
  
The girl with the blue eyes and the boy with green were ushered inside by the old woman to the right of the bakery. She shared what little food she had with them, before pushing them off to the next apartment, where they were met with beds and more food. The pattern continued, day to day, the two smuggled between apartments. No one commented how they would sometimes disappear, only to reappear later that night, short of breath and looking worse for wear.  
But they returned, and despite the weariness that hung on their shoulders, the determined set of their shoulders only strengthened.  
  
People, hunkered in their homes and afraid to breathe the air, would give sighs of relief as they heard shouts of “LUCKY CHARM” and “CATACLYSM” echo through the empty streets. The heroes were still out–still fighting.  
  
And every time they would return, only to be smuggled to another home, no matter the age or personal cost. In dark nights or early mornings they would hear the same message, whispered over and over in a thousand voices, a thousand different ways, each person greeting or saying goodbye in the same way.  
  
“Thank you. For still fighting. For not giving up on us. We believe in you. Please believe in yourselves.”


End file.
